The War in 2020

The planes were hurtling down into the attack, clearly recognizable as fighter-bombers now.

'Come on,' Babryshkin bellowed through the voice filter of the mask. He manhandled the woman over to the hatch and shoved her down inside, as though he were stuffing rags into a pipe. The other refugees watched in terror, struggling to hold on to the lurching vehicle as the driver maneuvered out into the steppe.

No room. No time.

Babryshkin kicked the woman's back downward with the flat of his boots, dropping in on top of her, kicking her out of the way. She tumbled to the floor of the vehicle's interior, attempting to wrap herself protectively around her infant. Babryshkin could hear the little boy screaming, even over the engine roar and through the seal of the protective mask.

He slammed the hatch cover down behind him, fumbling to seal it. The last thing he heard before shutting the compartment was the huge scream of the jets.

'Overpressure on,' he shrieked into the intercom, aching to be heard through the muffle of his mask's voice-mitter. He slapped at the panel of switches in front of him.

One more time, just one more time. He prayed that the vehicle's overpressure system would function. He didn't care what would come afterward, that was too far away. He only wanted to survive this immediate threat. He knew the filters were worn, and the vehicle had taken a terrible beating. Death could come in an instant. Irresistible.

He felt a shudder through the metal walls. Then another.

Bombs.

Perhaps it would be a purely conventional attack, without chemical weaponry.

But he doubted it. The chemical strikes had become too commonplace. The enemy had become addicted to them, having grasped the marvelous economy of such weapons.

He tried to look out through his optics. But it was difficult with the mask on. The tank lurched over rough ground, and the bouncing horizon filled with smoke and dust.

The first test would be whether the woman and her children lived. If they survived, the overpressure system was still functional.

The boy continued to scream. But that was a good sign. Nerve gas victims did not scream. They just died.

Radio call. Hard to hear, hard to hear.

'This is Kama.'

'I'm listening,' Babryshkin said, dispensing with call signs, trying to keep everything as simple as possible with the mask on.

'This is Kama. Chemical strike, chemical strike. Kama was the last surviving chemical reconnaissance vehicle in the shrunken unit.

'What kind of agent?' Babryshkin demanded of the radio, already envisioning the scene that would await him when he unsealed his hatch. Nothing helped, there was nothing you could do.

'No reading yet. My remote's out. I just read hot.'

'Acknowledged.'

'This is Angara,' the air defender jumped in. 'They're leaving. Looks like just one pass.'

The voice sounded too clear.

'Do you have your goddamned mask on?' Babryshkin demanded.

'No… no, we were engaging the enemy. We've got a good seal on the vehicles, and—'

'Get your mask on, you stupid bastard. I don't want any unnecessary casualties. Do you hear me?'

No answer. His nerves were going. He had stepped on the other man's transmission. They had merely canceled each other out. He was forgetting the most basic things. He needed to rest.

'All stations,' Babryshkin said, enunciating slowly and carefully. 'Report in order of your call signs.'

This was the test. How many more call signs would have disappeared?

The overpressure system had worked. The woman and her children were still breathing on the floor of the crew compartment. The boy screamed without stopping, making up for his earlier silence. Babryshkin was about to command the woman to shut the brat up, when the skewed angle of the boy's arm caught his eye, evident even through the camouflage of his winter coat.

Nothing to be done. At least the boy was alive. Arms could be set. The woman looked up at Babryshkin, her eyes near madness. Her forehead was bleeding. She had protected her infant in the fall, not herself. A good mother. Hardly more than a child herself.

He listened as his subordinates reported in. The voices were businesslike, if weary and a bit slurred. Everything was reduced to a matter of routine.

The reporting sequence broke. Another crew gone.

Babryshkin spoke into the intercom, ordering his driver to turn back toward the road. Then he ordered the radio reporting to resume at the next sequence number.

Unexpectedly, his vehicle jerked to a halt. The engine was still running, however, and Babryshkin did not understand what was happening.

'Wait,' he told the radio net. Then he switched to the intercom. 'Why in the hell did you stop? I told you to get back on the road.'

The driver mumbled something, unintelligible through the protective mask.

'I asked you why the hell we've stopped, goddamnit,' Babryshkin barked.

'I can't…' the driver said in a flat voice.

'What do you mean, you can't? Are you crazy?'

'I can't,' the driver repeated. 'I'd have to drive over them.'

What in the hell are you talking about?' Babryshkin demanded, putting the eye piece of his protective mask as close to his optics as he could.

The driver did not need to answer. Where there had been a plodding army of humanity a few minutes before, there was only a litter of dark, fallen shapes. No hysteria, no struggling, no shivering movements of the wounded, not the least evidence of suffering. Only stillness, except where scattered military vehicles continued their slow, aimless maneuvers, like riderless horses on an antique battlefield.

The only thing that still held the power to shock Babryshkin was the ease with which death came. The casual quickness. Whether to the man whose legs had so unexpectedly been gobbled by a tank, or to this stilled multitude. No allowance for struggle, for passion, for heroism. There was barely time for cowardice.

They said that the new nerve gases were humane weapons. They killed their victims so swiftly. And, within minutes, they dissipated back into the atmosphere, grown completely harmless.

Babryshkin radioed to the chemical defense officer. Do you have a definite reading at this time?'

'This is Kama. Superfast nerve, type Sh-M. It's already gone. I've unmasked myself.'

Babryshkin shook his head at the universe. Then he tugged at his mask, feeling the sudden wetness as the rubber lifted away from his skin. He shook the mask out, then tucked it methodically into its carrier.

'Hold in place,' he ordered his driver. 'I'm going to dismount.' But first he reentered the radio net. 'All stations. All clear, all clear.' He paused for just a moment, searching for the right words. When he could not find them, he simply said, 'Clean off your vehicles.' Then he unlocked his hatch and climbed out.

He was lucky. There wasn't so much dirty work. All of his passengers had tumbled from the maneuvering tank in their struggles with death, save for the old man, who still lay coddled against the rear of the gun housing, burned-out cigarette stub in his hand. Babryshkin got him under the armpits and rolled him off the side of the tank.

There was nothing you could do. He stood up, drinking in the cold, harmless air. As far as he could see, nothing remained alive in the roadway. Worse than the plague, he thought. Far worse. No act of God.

Something white caught his eye in the middle distance. At first, he was baffled. Then he recognized the carcasses of the two sheep that had been driven from God knew where.

Pointless.

Suddenly, a scream slashed out at the world, piercing, even over the idle of the big tank engine. Babryshkin looked around.